ABSTRACT
Awareness of issues of abuse and the wide range of possible types of abuse is increasing in social and health care settings as we have noted throughout previous chapters. Much current debate within the context of social and health care focuses on individuals either experiencing or perpetrating abuse, and perhaps it is this that immediately comes to mind when we consider the need for protection. However, there remains a need for especial consideration of community-level abuse, and ways of tackling community issues. As we have seen throughout this book, the ways in which we think about vulnerability and protection are both varied and multi-layered. Whilst we might think, initially, of the individual made vulnerable by the actions or omissions of another, it is clear that certain groups and communities construct conditions of vulnerability for other people or may themselves, as a result of specific qualities they hold, experience abuse from other cultures and communities.
